A blog for members of Westbury Baptist Church, people who want to know more about our ministry, or people who just want to chat.

Thursday, August 30, 2012

We Are the Watchmen

One of
my friends told me a story once that has really stuck with me.His dad was a handyman who later came to know
Christ and became a preacher.One day,
my friend was helping his dad do some electrical work.At one point, the dad turned to his son and
explained that he would be working with live electricity, and that if he
touched the wrong wire, it would electrocute him.If this happened, he wouldn’t be able to let
go of the wire.So he handed my friend a
two-by-four and said, “If this happens, you’ll know it.And if it does, you have to hit my arm with
that board to force me to let go of the wire.Don’t touch me with your hand, or you’ll get shocked, too.Do you understand?”By the way, my friend was around 10 at the
time.Can you imagine him standing
there, holding that board, shaking like a leaf and praying to God that he
wouldn’t have to hit his dad?I think
about that story sometimes when I think about being charged with heavy
responsibility.Like most 21st
Century males, I try to avoid as much responsibility as possible, as a general
rule.But I especially try to avoid
those kinds of responsibilities.I don’t
like jobs that are simple in concept but very important. I am continually amazed at my ability to mess
up simple tasks in wildly creative and original ways.It’s my true talent, in fact.So if the responsibility is heavy, if lives
are on the line, I don’t want to be the one holding the two-by-four.

If
you feel like that too, I have some bad news and some good news.The bad news is that you and I have been
given exactly that kind of responsibility—a job that is so simple in concept
that a child can understand it—but hard to carry out, and with eternal
consequences if we fail. In fact, you
might accurately say that this responsibility is our life’s work.We all have different personalities,
circumstances, careers and callings in God’s Kingdom, but we’re ALL called to
do this.The good news is that God has
given us exactly what we need in order to succeed. This Sunday at Westbury Baptist, we'll take a look at Ezekiel 33:1-11. We'll spell out this
great responsibility God has placed on your shoulders and mine, then we'll
talk about the three ways we can mess it up, and what we need to do in order to
succeed.